Newsletter March 2024

This edition highlights CEI's global work across our key fields: generating and making sense of evidence, accelerating evidence into policy and practice, and building cultures for evidence use.

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Enhancing capabilities in Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing workforce

Over the past year, CEI has been working with the Victorian Department of Health on creating and sustaining systemwide practice change through implementation of Our workforce, our future, a capability framework for the mental health and wellbeing workforce.

CEI is applying insights from implementation science to support use of the Framework across the sector.


READ the article  (2 mins)

Improving the wellbeing of unaccompanied young asylum seekers

Despite research showing young refugees have experienced trauma and are at higher risk of mental health problems, many do not receive supportive interventions. In response, the UK Refugee Council developed My View, a specialist therapeutic service.

Evaluation of My View – undertaken by CEI and partners Ipsos UK, commissioned by Foundations – shows it significantly decreased young people’s psychological distress and significantly increased their wellbeing.


READ the article  (2 mins)

Growing cultures for evidence use across the Asia-Pacific

About one-quarter of CEI’s projects have a training component, and this year we’ve observed a growing appetite across Asia for training and education in implementation science and evidence use. Led from our Singapore office, these projects include everything from targeted short courses to partnering in the development of a formal Master of Science degree alongside National University of Singapore.

“The more professionals with the know-how and support to use evidence well, the more good we can all do,” says Mary Abdo, CEI's Managing Director in Asia.


READ the article  (2 mins)

Exploring how place-based approaches might help reduce youth violence

Research highlights the urgent need for innovative solutions to youth violence, with homicide the third leading cause of death for 15- to 19-year-olds. Place-based approaches (PBAs) – where the problem is understood and addressed in its local context – are considered a potential solution.

To understand more, the Youth Endowment Fund asked CEI, Monash University and the University of Cambridge Violence Research Centre to conduct a large-scale review of existing evidence. This research addresses a “significant evidence gap and makes the path clearer for future interventions," says Jane Lewis, CEI’s UK Managing Director.


READ the article  (3 mins)

Improving co-design in community mental health initiatives

Mental health can be a tricky topic for diverse communities to tackle openly; co-designed health promotions might make things easier. 

To explore these approaches, CEI will be evaluating Mental Health Australia’s multi-year Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Community Engagement Project, which supports co-design and pilot testing of mental health promotion projects. This evaluation will “enable us to build overall understanding and generate new knowledge about what success looks like,” says Dr Vanessa Rose, CEI Director.


READ the article   (1 min)

Meeting children’s needs through 'Kids first!'

A new video in English has been created to highlight the Kids first! project in Norway, led by CEI Nordic and funded by Kavli Trust.

For the past year, CEI Nordic Director Professor Arild Bjørndal and his team have been gathering information from organisations and community members on challenges facing children and on the responses needed. Now, these insights are being matched to global research in order to best support children.

“What we all want,” says Arild, “is to systematise and embed locally relevant approaches that better support children, so they can grow into robust adults.”


WATCH the video  (1 min)
 

Publications and knowledge sharing

  • Implementation-minded policy making 
    How can policy work can be more mindful of what is required for effective implementation? Wales Centre for Public Policy commissioned CEI to undertake a synthesis of the latest evidence on how to bridge the policy-implementation gap.
  • UNESCO GEM Report on edtech in Singapore
    A regional landscape study on education technology (“edtech”) in Singapore, bringing together insights as part of a global report focused on Southeast Asia.
  • Systematic review protocol on interventions to support kinship carers
    Foundations, the UK What Works Centre for Children and Families, commissioned CEI and our partners to investigate which policies and programs might improve the experience of kinship carers, improve outcomes for children and ensure their future benefit, and might address the inconsistent use of kinship care across the UK.
  • Regional Early Childhood Development Landscape Study
    This comprehensive mapping of parenting and early childhood programs and interventions across Asia (focusing on China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore) was developed with a consortium of donors convened by Asia Philanthropy Circle. This evidence is now influencing policy in Asia
    with legislation introduced in the Philippines, for example, drawing on key recommendations.
  • Evidence-based youth employment "toolkit"
    A free, online resource of evidence-based guidance on policy and practice that can improve youth employment. Developed by CEI, the Institute for Employment Studies and Monash University, the toolkit has been called "the world's first" by its commissioner, Youth Futures Foundation.


Find out more about our current work HERE